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[Moderator note: this is the primary portable PDFsam thread. View database entry]

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I had some errors using Pdftkbuilder to combine some PDFs. I found this free open source tool: http://www.pdfsam.org/ . It does more and better than Pdftkbuilder: it can merge/split/rotate/reorder pages/extract sections/mix two documents pages; its download link is: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfsam/ ... p/download.
Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge to discover if any registry entries are created.

Requires Java.

pdfsam-config.xml in user\current\.pdfsam

FWG really liked this program back in '09: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2009/02/1 ... interface/

May play with the settings a bit and see what I can figure out.

Thanks for testing, Baas.

joby_toss wrote:X-PDF Split and Merge 2.2.1 (rev14)

Thanks Joby.

X-PDFsam - oddly won't let you just use the regular JRE if you already have it installed. Insists on downloading a fresh one. Weird.

Annoyed with that, I just downloaded the regular client to test, but it wouldn't thumbanil any of the PDF documents I put into it. Not sure if this is just my machine or what.

Maybe change the path in X-PDFsam.ini?
I think WPP even has a variable for system's path...

@robzuc,

PDFTK Builder by AngusJ uses an outdated pdftk binary (1.14 -circa. 2006); have you tried updating the pdftk binary from HERE

You might have better results with 1.43 or 1.44 (1.44 removed/replaced some 3rd party code due to GPL license compatibilty)

Links:
PDFTKBuilder: http://www.angusj.com/pdftkb/

PDF Toolkit:
Homepage: http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
History (downloads): http://www.pdflabs.com/docs/pdftk-version-history/

Hi webfork,

webfork wrote:X-PDFsam - oddly won't let you just use the regular JRE if you already have it installed. Insists on downloading a fresh one. Weird.

Annoyed with that, I just downloaded the regular client to test, but it wouldn't thumbanil any of the PDF documents I put into it. Not sure if this is just my machine or what.

I think you will be very happy to know that we have just upgraded X-PdfSAM to the new X-Launcher release http://www.winpenpack.com/main/download.php?view.679
Among others, the launcher have the following new feature (that we are testing for several months): if Java is already installed in the host PC, the launcher uses it; if not, it tries to use the portable java (under \Lib\Java), if exists, otherwise (as last resort) it asks the user to download Java for installing it into \Lib\Java.
I think that this behavior could satisfy everybody
Please try it and let us know what you think about!
Best Regards
ZioZione

Hi joby_toss,

joby_toss wrote:Maybe change the path in X-PDFsam.ini?

Code: Select all

[FileToRun]
PathToExe=C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe

I think WPP even has a variable for system's path...

no, we don't have a variable for "Program Files" path (also if we could add it easily), because, theoretically, it is the last folder that should "interest" a portable software...
The modification you suggested above is no more necessary: please take a look here http://www.winpenpack.com/main/download.php?view.679 .
Best Regards
ZioZione

ZioZione wrote:I think you will be very happy to know that we have just upgraded X-PdfSAM to the new X-Launcher release http://www.winpenpack.com/main/download.php?view.679
Among others, the launcher have the following new feature (that we are testing for several months): if Java is already installed in the host PC, the launcher uses it; if not, it tries to use the portable java (under \Lib\Java), if exists, otherwise (as last resort) it asks the user to download Java for installing it into \Lib\Java.

Great news! Thank you!

joby_toss wrote:

ZioZione wrote:... if Java is already installed in the host PC, the launcher uses it; if not, it tries to use the portable java

Great news! Thank you!

Ditto. Will retest.

Note: this review is really for X-PDFsam (thanks Joby and ZioZione) because the install program had some odd issues on my machine.

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Short version: this program is a big deal. It does some things with PDF files the Adobe Acrobat 10 Pro ($450) won't do. If you mess with PDFs a lot, you need to check this out. Its a monster.

License: Open source (GPL): some parts are dual-licensed GPL and LGPL for business use.

Interface:

• An unfriendly Java interface, but a lot cleaner than I've seen from other Java programs. Mimicks a Windows look and feel pretty well. Also supports several skins/themes.

Major features:

• Manage Double-Sided Scans - Very few people have a double-sided scanner but most documents are now printed double to save paper. Unfortunately, scanning them back in is a pain. Here Alternate Mix will solve it. Scan in one side then the next in reverse. This will collate and reverse easily.
  
  Similarly, if you've ever scanned a book, you know that you have to remove the binding, scan one side, and then scan the second side in reverse. This means several more steps to have a PDF doc that looks anything like the original. Alternate Mix does this all easily: you can reverse either the first or second document, and then switch pages based on pages (e.g. some larger documents will require 2 scans per PDF page)
  
  I was looking for a program like this years ago that would do what the Alternate Mix function will do. This program is already fantastic. I worked out a rather detailed system with Renamer to scan in a book this would have solved almost automatically.
• Visual document composer worked well. Easy to use and many functions. Some PDFs wouldn't render, but most were fine.
• Split options and lots of them: individual, odd, even, after X pages, every N pages, by size, and by bookmarks. Does not batch split (for that function, see PDFTK4ALL suggested by the accountant)
• Batch functions: rotate, ability to rotate by even/odd pages (great for scans where the even pages come from double-sided documents and therefore reversed). I already use FastStone Image Viewer for this task, but can't use that program at work and may not work with multi-page documents (haven't tested it).

Output notes:

• Can output to several versions of Acrobat ( 6 through 8 ). Usually this means better compression, but in my test a document from version 5 to version 8 only compressed only about 2%. Depending on the program used to create the file in the first place, there might be more.
• Combining documents doesn't break included OCR stuff I created using PDF-XChange
• Can maintain form information (didn't test this, but there's an option to do so)

Negative:

• Oddly, the program's default PDF view is extremely basic. Blurry rendering, no functionality, very basic zooming. You really need PDF-XChange or one of the other great free PDF viewers here on the site.

Other notes:

• Other than the viewer, the only thing this program is missing is a function to crop / edit / resize PDFs. That's usually the line between freeware and commercial programs, but this program already does so many things other programs (commerical and free) don't.
  
  On a side note, its bizarre having this program while at the same time having access to both Acrobat 9 and 10 Pro and preferring the freeware option. I realize there are some specialized things that only Acrobat can do, but that list is shrinking thanks to programs like this.

X-PDF Split and Merge 2.2.2 [rev16] available @ http://www.winpenpack.com/main/download.php?view.679.